With A Single Blow
by GreenTea4062
Summary: After losing to Kaguya, at the request of the Rikudō Sennin, Naruto went back to the past all by herself ― or so she thought.


It was a second chance. Her only remaining chance of living her life to her fullest. Yet here she was, wasting it.

"Fyuh..." Naruto let out a breath and stared up, hands behind her head.

To be honest, she was somewhat annoyed with her own situation. Her life currently was boring, flat, and had no challenges whatsoever other than tracking a being that was hard as hell to find.

For countless times since she had arrived in the past, Naruto reminded herself that she was given a chance and she should be grateful for this opportunity, not wasting it by moping around.

But Naruto was human. Although knowing what they should do, humans tend to do the opposites.

Sniffing the air only made her smell her own body odor.

Her nose wrinkled in disgust, Naruto said to herself, "I should go take a bath." Once the sky darkened, she will be going to the nearest public bathhouse.

Silently, she watched the clear, blue sky. Sitting up, she drew in her knees together to draw in her own heat to warm herself. With her baggy clothes in tatters and the overall look of someone that hadn't showered in weeks, she was the perfect image of a homeless beggar.

After Kaguya had succeeded in extracting the Yin half Kurama from her, the Rikudō Sennin asked her, or requested, to go back to the past and do what she can to prevent his mother from ever resurrecting in the first place ― destroy Black Zetsu.

Naruto said yes to the request only because she felt obligated to. In addition to that, she had nothing to do anyway in the Pure Land.

Sasuke, who the Rikudō Sennin also had asked to go back to the past, had declined, saying that he didn't trust himself to not further mess things up _(it was an excuse that she also could use for herself, really. She could suggest her chakra predecessor, Hashirama, to do the task but damn, her pride wouldn't allow it)_.

Naruto didn't know if it was a noble act or an asshole-ish action of his to refuse the Rikudō Sennin's request, but she didn't really want to mull it over... much. A young, perfectly sane and happy Sasuke would be in the past too anyways, so it didn't really matter (_not really, she wasn't happy that Sasuke left her alone_).

And also, she didn't want to force something on him. She could see that he was too tired, too weary. And to destroy Kaguya's third child, the reincarnation of the first child of the Rikudō Sennin wasn't needed much anyway.

Sighing to herself, Naruto went to assume that Sasuke wanted to see his brother and parents again in the afterlife or he lost the drive to become Hokage or something. Naruto herself wanted to see Jiraiya-sensei, her parents, Neji, Asuma, and all the others but she was in no hurry _(or maybe she didn't want to face them as a failure)_.

Naruto was all alone, yet again.

But it was fine, really, she oftentimes reassured herself. After all, all she wanted was to fulfill the Rikudō Sennin's request ― and peace for the shinobi world.

She thought that all it took to reach peace was to erase Black Zetsu's existence from the world and after she was done with that, she couldn't care less about this life.

At this point, she didn't really give a damn about her dream of becoming Hokage _(maybe like Sasuke, she was too tired to care, with all the bullshits the world threw at her way it was a wonder she didn't break sooner, really)_.

* * *

After she had tracked down the slimy, non-human being and destroyed the whining, mother-obsessed bastard that was Black Zetsu to pieces, she sealed the pieces in a bunch of high-quality storage scrolls that she immediately got rid off of them by blowing all of the scrolls to dust with Lava Release: Rasengan.

With the task over, she was about to end her life there and then.

The blade was hovering a few centimeters away from her stomach.

And out of nowhere, she broke down.

Apparently, Naruto didn't have it in her to end her own life.

* * *

Trying to be positive, Naruto decided she could just 'go with the flow' with this life.

Well, she still had to talk to Obito and Nagato to set them straight. Moreover, the Uchiha clan was still alive, she should kidnap Itachi and tell him to just not kill all of his kin but instead, make the paranoid plus pragmatic man that was Danzō 'disappear'.

Easy.

And so, she opted to stay near Konoha, always watching what was supposed to be her home for afar. She lived by fishing and doing odd jobs here and there to buy her monthly needs. Clothes were the last thing she thought of. Her body was always warm, even if she didn't have Kurama sealed inside her belly anymore.

But of course, she couldn't live without talking to someone once in a while. She made it her daily mission to at least talk to someone once a day.

Making small talk with a stranger was what prevented her from going crazy. She, for the heck of it, went by with her own name, Uzumaki Naruto. For that matter, she couldn't even imagine herself without the name her parents had given her with.

She had a counterpart here, younger and full of innocent dreams. Albeit, there was a difference what was with her younger counterpart's hair was blonde like her ― their? ― father, but their eyes were almost the exact same color. However, her younger counterpart had a different given name.

Naruto could only thank the Rikudō Sennin for making her younger counterpart's name different than Naruto because she had a claim for the name.

Maybe it was something the Rikudō Sennin did to tell her that, although the 'fate' bestowed upon them was the same, they were different people. Or maybe, he had made a mistake in sending her to a different, alternate world or something.

Naruto pitied that girl. Her name was Shinachi. It was a no better name than Menma ― th name of her counterpart in the fake world Obito created ― in her opinion.

Out of nowhere, she grumbled to herself, "I hate fermented bamboo shoots." Only to giggle to herself afterwards _(Naruto passingly thought that maybe she had lost a bit of her sanity, who knows)_.

She really didn't hate fermented bamboo shoots, but she still could feel the anger she felt towards Iruka-sensei that day when he didn't want to recommend her for the jōnin position ― and the stuff reminded herself of it. Iruka-sensei said that she wasn't ready or something like that. Naruto took her anger on the innocent bowl of ramen that was unfortunately filled with fermented bamboo shoots at that time, and no white fish cake with a pink swirl on the middle ― naruto ― in it.

Resting her forehead on her knees, she breathed in. That reminded her, she hadn't even had visited Ichiraku Ramen yet.

Time to infiltrate into Konoha ― for the second time since she snuck into the village to investigate the current state of it ― for fun.


End file.
